Notebook
.Pakistan's request for the return of the Koh1-Noor diamond is one of those nice, irrelevant issues which people gratefully seize Upon as an opportunity for a lively debate When the major topics of the day become too painful to contemplate. So we should be grateful to Prime Minister Bhutto for bringing the question forward in a week overshadowed by unimaginable horrors such as the threat of another seamen's strike and the news that next month's Labour Party Conference will decide almost certainly to nationalise the banks. We can prepare to enJoy the inevitable correspondence in The Times almost as much as we enjoyed the debate over Mr Jens Thorsen's proposed him about Christ, provided, however, that Mr Bhutto does not finally get his way. For, With the greatest respect to the Pakistani "rime Minister (who is interviewed by George Hutchinson in this issue), there is no Do. ssible justification for giving him the diamond. The Koh-i-Noor can hardly be regarded as part of Pakistan's cultural heritage: indeed, it is doubtful whether Pakistan can lay a convincing claim to it at all. It has changed hands so often during the Past 1,000 years, almost always as a spoil of war, that several other claims—including the one that India has already made—would carry as much weight. And there is sometiling just a little provocative about placing such insistence upon the return of one treasure which is particularly associated With the British Crown—among so many 'Drought back to England from her former dependencies. Apart from that, however, !here must surely be a statute of limitations these matters. If this resplendent crown Jewel is to be returned after more than 125 Years, how many of the treasured contents °f our museums will be safe? Its return would create a logical justification for the return of other Raj relics, including all the documents in the India Office Library. At the time of Indian independence de Valera suggested to Nehru that he might like to and over to Ireland all statues and other rhementoes of the (Anglo-Irish) Duke of Wellington's time in India. Nehru replied that he had no intention of surrendering any '.,art of India's national heritage. That should ue our reply to Mr Bhutto.
The biggest round of applause on the first ElaY of the TUC conference was for a asque labour delegate, who was received Lar more warmly than any of the other °floured visitors from abroad, not excludLlg tsvo from Spain. But there was a delay k7fore he could acknowledge the ovation, `i,e, cause the president, Cyril Plant, had great ulffieulty in pronouncing his name.
For that formidable man of affairs, the many-sided Lord Goodman, October will bring the surrender of one office, the assumption of another. After seven years. he is relinquishing the chairmanship of the Newspaper Publishers' Association and will become Master of University College, Oxford. He will not be retiring from his legal practice, however. Nor will he give up his home in London. He means to spend two or three days a week in Oxford. where he already has a house, and will thus remain what he has been for so long—one of our most familiar metropolitan figures.
Meanwhile, in his final weeks with the N PA, he is heavily—and patiently—engaged in the industry's own negotiations over a Press Charter. Not that Lord Goodman actually wants a charter: at heart he is opposed to the concept—rightly so. He recognises that the present government is determined to introduce one, however, and has thought it prudent to discuss a formula which instead of laying down restrictions would guarantee freedoms.
The probability is that no common draft will be agreed among the various parties within the newspaper world—the prospective victims of a charter. In that event, Mr Michael Foot, the famous libertarian, will no doubt be happy to impose an edict of his own (or the NUJ's) devising. Sir Richard Marsh, who lacks Lord Goodman's equipment for the role, is taking over the chairmanship of the NPA at a dismal moment.
Shell, we are told, is pulling out of the Lebanon and handing over all its installations there to its local employees—thus creating potential goodwill for the future, if the Lebanon has a future. This story is denied at head office in London; or rather the line is that no decision on the installations has yet been reached. Such denials are often made in advance of an official announcement. It is right for a man to be protected against unjust dismissal. But how are cuts to be made in local authority spending when, as in Tower Hamlets, London, the demotion of a homosexual social worker, found guilty of gross indecency, is regarded as unacceptable by an industrial tribunal ? The man, who had accepted another job worth 000 less a year as a council development officer, has been reinstated in his old department on his old salary 'with the former managerial duties' but 'with no personal clients or case load'. One can only wonder if this job really needed filling. It is also interesting to speculate what will be the outcome of an interview between Bedfordshire's Director of Social Services and a social worker who. after being fined £100 for trying to have unlawful sexual intercourse with a schoolgirl prostitute, has been invited 'to discuss his future'. Promotion ?
Alex Gregory-Hood of the Rowan Gallery is opening the grounds of his home, Loxley Hall, near Stratford-on-Avon, as a sculpture garden later this month. It has always been impossible to show sculpture by the Gallery's artists to interested collectors, because the sculpture is often too large or better suited anyway to an outdoor site. The idea to integrate a home and business premises in this way seems very sensible. The whole thing may be seen as an aesthetic framework for commerce, but GregoryHood has done a great deal for some of the most inventive artists in this country. including Bridget Riley and the sculptor Philip King, and the venture touches the same kind of idealism that usually seems to motivate activities at the Rowan Gallery. The lawns and trees of Loxley will provide a fine context for sculpture—and it will be good to find modern sculpture reassuringly seen like any other kind of sculpture in a traditional setting, Middlesex's victory in the County Championship is very welcome—not only because they are our local team, and because someone in the office backed them at 25-1 at the beginning of the cricket season. They were always much better value than that. The are an attractive team at the moment, with some good-looking batting and, especially. a strong hand of spinners. It was that, in this uniquely dry summer, which largely gave them the title. They have the additional distinction of being the only side to defeat the West Indians, in effect twice because this week's T. N. Pearce XI included eight Middlesex men, captained by Brearley.
Although there is no longer officially a county of Middlesex and although the side's supporters are fewer than many others'. there is a surprisingly local air to it. More of the players were born in the old shire than is the case with many more rustic counties, including the great Titmus who—playing for Middlesex when some of the younger players in the present side were not yet born—came from St Pancras, a good long-on's stone's throw from here.
Previous page
